Fellside


M.R. Carey - 2016
    It's not the kind of place you'd want to end up. But it's where Jess Moulson could be spending the rest of her life.It's a place where even the walls whisper.And one voice belongs to a little boy with a message for Jess.Will she listen?

Room


Emma Donoghue - 2010
    It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work. Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

We, the Jury


Robert Rotstein - 2018
    Now, eight jurors must retire to the deliberation room and decide whether David committed premeditated murder-or whether he was a battered spouse who killed his wife in self-defense.Told from the perspective of over a dozen participants in a murder trial, We, the Jury examines how public perception can mask the ghastliest nightmares. As the jurors stagger toward a verdict, they must sift through contradictory testimony from the Sullingers' children, who disagree on which parent was Satan; sort out conflicting allegations of severe physical abuse, adultery, and incest; and overcome personal animosities and biases that threaten a fair and just verdict. Ultimately, the central figures in We, the Jury must navigate the blurred boundaries between bias and objectivity, fiction and truth.

Pretty Guilty Women


Gina LaManna - 2019
    Four Confessions. One Murder.Something has gone terribly wrong at the Banks wedding. A man is dead. Four different women rush to offer confessions, each insisting that they committed the crime -- alone.Ginger is holding her family together by a thread, and this wedding weekend is not the fabulous getaway she anticipated.Kate has enough money to buy her way out of anything. Well, almost anything.Emily can't shake her reputation or her memories, and she's planning to drown this whole vacation in a bottle.Lulu's got ex-husbands to spare, and another on the way -- as soon as she figures out what the devil the current husband is up to behind her back.Why would they confess to the same murder? Only they know -- and they're not telling. This page-turning novel explores the depths of friendship and the truths we love to ignore.

Center of Gravity


Laura McNeill - 2015
    So when Mitchell Carson sweeps into her life with his adorable son, the ready-made family seems like a dream come true. In the blink of an eye, she’s married, has a new baby, and life is wonderful.Or is it?When her picture-perfect marriage begins unraveling at the seams, Ava convinces herself she can fix it. It’s temporary. It’s the stress. It’s Mitchell’s tragic history of loss.If only Ava could believe her own excuses.Mitchell is no longer the charming, thoughtful man she married. He grows more controlling by the day, revealing a violent jealous streak. His behavior is recklessly erratic, and the unanswered questions about his past now hint at something far more sinister than Ava can stomach. Before she can fit the pieces together, Mitchell files for divorce and demands full custody of their boys.Fueled by fierce love for her children and aided by Graham Thomas, a new attorney in town, Ava takes matters into her own hands, digging deep into the past. But will finding the truth be enough to beat Mitchell at his own game?Center of Gravity weaves a chilling tale, revealing the unfailing and dangerous truth that things—and people—are not always what they seem.

While I Was Gone


Sue Miller - 1999
    She has three dynamic daughters, a loving marriage, and a rewarding career. But she feels a sense of unease. Then an old housemate reappears, sending Jo back to a distant past when she lived in a communal house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Drawn deeper into her memories of that fateful summer in 1968, Jo begins to obsess about the person she once was. As she is pulled farther from her present life, her husband, and her world, Jo struggles against becoming enveloped by her past and its dark secret.

Fiona


Meredith Moore - 2016
    In this riveting, character-driven second novel, the fairy tale life Fiona imagined turns into a nightmare when a decades-old family feud resurfaces and forces her to confront the ghosts of her past—and question her own sanity.Fiona, an independent loner with wild red hair, leaves her fractured home in Texas for a brand-new life in the Scottish Highlands to be the au pair for Poppy Mackenzie, the young daughter of her mother’s recently deceased childhood friends. Fee, as she’s called, is thrilled to be free of her less-than-ideal home life. But there’s another motive driving her eagerness to flee to the Highlands: the desire to reconnect with her mother, who succumbed to suicide after a long battle with schizophrenia when Fiona was only twelve, leaving her to live with distant relatives of her absentee father.Fee doesn’t have much time to settle into her new home—a castle maintained by the Mackenzie family fortune—before a series of strange events starts to make her question her sanity. As the attacks on her mental health become more and more intense, Fee finds herself both the pawn and the target in a ruthless, greed-driven plot with roots that go all the way back to her mother. Alone and friendless in a foreign country and half-convinced she’s losing her mind—just like her mother—Fee must rely on her wits and her street smarts to save not only herself but also the lives of her newfound Scottish family.Meredith Moore’s smart, classic-meets-cool storytelling style delivers fast-paced twists and gobs of drama with raw emotion and literary flair.

My Friend Leonard


James Frey - 2005
     A Million Little Pieces was the first Oprah Book Club pick by a living author in over two years. It instantly became a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 USA Today bestseller, and a #1 Publishers Weekly bestseller, with over 1.7 million copies in print. My Friend Leonard picks up right where Pieces leaves off. A New York Times bestseller in its own right before the Oprah pick, My Friend Leonard is James Frey's story of his friendship with Leonard, the larger-than-life mobster who "adopted" James as he left rehab. Leonard, who offers James lucrative-if illegal, mysterious, and slightly dangerous-employment when he needs it. Leonard, of the secret deals, of the surprising passions that belie his violent career choice, of fantastic generosity and ferocious loyalty. Leonard, who has been holding on to some remarkable secrets, and who has invested in their friendship more than James could ever imagine. My Friend Leonard is, at its core, about the responsibility that comes with loving someone and going out on any number of limbs to care for them. And it is a book that proves that one of the most provocative literary voices of his generation is also one of the most emphatically human.

Vanishing Girls


Lauren Oliver - 2015
    But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.

The Witness


Sandra Brown - 1995
    But she doesn't dare reveal her true identity to the authorities. Instead, she plans her immediate escape, and her perilous flight begins.Kendall, the best public defender in Prosper, South Carolina, has stumbled upon a chilling town secret, turning her marriage to one of Prosper's most powerful men into a living hell. Now Kendall is a terrified mother trying to save her child's life, a reluctant witness who knows too much about an insidious evil . . . and a woman surrounded by forces that will stop at nothing to protect what is "theirs."

Sea Wife


Amity Gaige - 2020
    With their two kids—Sybil, age seven, and George, age two—Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their forty-four foot sailboat awaits them. The initial result is transformative; the marriage is given a gust of energy, Juliet emerges from her depression, and the children quickly embrace the joys of being feral children at sea. Despite the stresses of being novice sailors, the family learns to crew the boat together on the ever-changing sea. The vast horizons and isolated islands offer Juliet and Michael reprieve – until they are tested by the unforeseen.Sea Wife is told in gripping dual perspectives: Juliet’s first person narration, after the journey, as she struggles to come to terms with the life-changing events that unfolded at sea, and Michael’s captain’s log, which provides a riveting, slow-motion account of these same inexorable events, a dialogue that reveals the fault lines created by personal history and political divisions. Sea Wife is a transporting novel about marriage, family and love in a time of unprecedented turmoil. It is unforgettable in its power and astonishingly perceptive in its portrayal of optimism, disillusionment, and survival.

Shotgun Gravy


Chuck Wendig - 2011
    Ears ringing. A whimpering there in the darkness. Doesn’t always hit her at night, either. Might be in the middle of the day. She should be smelling pizza, or garbage, or cat s**t wafting from the house next door, but instead what she smells is that acrid tang of gunsmoke. All up in her nose. Clinging there like a tick…”So begins the tale of Atlanta Burns, a young girl with a grim past lingering at the fringes of her droll and dreary high school existence. She’s content to remain there, too, or so she thinks: soon, however, she’s drawn in a battle against two separate groups of bullies – a trio of local troublemakers and a group of Neo-Nazi gay bashers – to save a pair of new and unexpected friends. But actions have consequences, and by fighting back, Atlanta discovers she’s kicked over a log, thus revealing what hides squirming underneath. It’s just her, her friends, and a .410 squirrel gun against a handful of bullies and a conspiracy whose worst aspects remain yet hidden.Can she triumph? Will her victory be paid in unseen sacrifices? Or is fighting back just asking for a face full of bad news?(This is novella #1, a complete tale in and of itself. But Atlanta’s story will continue in episode #2, BAIT DOG.)“SHOTGUN GRAVY is like VERONICA MARS on Adderall. Atlanta Burns is a troubled teenage girl who’s scared, angry, and not taking s**t from anybody. Chuck Wendig knocks this one out of the park as he so often does.” – Stephen Blackmoore, author of CITY OF THE LOST and DEAD THINGS“Give Nancy Drew a shotgun and a kick-butt attitude and you get Atlanta Burns. Packed with action and fascinating characters, SHOTGUN GRAVY is a story that will captivate both teens and adults and have them clamoring for the next installment.” – Joelle Charbonneau, author of SKATING OVER THE LINE

My Cousin Rachel


Daphne du Maurier - 1951
    Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in Philip as his heir, a man who will love his grand home as much as he does himself. But the cosy world the two construct is shattered when Ambrose sets off on a trip to Florence. There he falls in love and marries - and there he dies suddenly. Jealous of his marriage, racked by suspicion at the hints in Ambrose's letters, and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart. Despite himself, Philip is drawn to this beautiful, sophisticated, mysterious Rachel like a moth to the flame. And yet... might she have had a hand in Ambrose's death?

Pilgrims at the White Horizon


Michael Wyndham Thomas - 2013
    That wasn’t Keith Huxtable, expert handyman, but since he’s just about the only person who remembers their world’s fleeting appearance in a 1950s comic strip, he’s the one they’ve got pegged! The unfinished bits are spreading. Eating away at Razalia. Beings are falling in and they don’t come out. Can Keith fix it? And get back home in time to save his comics collection and his marriage?A tribute to the magic of British annuals! A father and daughter in an intergalactic adventure beyond imagination! The story you weren’t expecting but will never forget!

Burn


Paul Slatter - 2017
    With the help of a legendary but aging private detective, an unwitting supermodel, and a host of others lurking in the mayhem of Vancouver's seedy underbelly, Daltrey hunts a psychopath through webs of prostitution, deception, and savage violence.Dark, undeniably funny, Burn is a tale of revenge and the elusive fantasies driving its hero’s, villains, and strange tag alongs. Paul Slatter presents a portrait of the lies, hilarious perversions, and raw psychotic impulses at the heart of modern life in a too-close-for-comfort romp that keeps us laughing on every page.Praise for Burn:"The tension is ripe from the get-go and you can never be prepared for what is to happen next.""This book is a unique phenomenon.""Book 1 was a fantastic read. I am waiting for book 2""This is funny as hell, so dirty you'll have no choice but to recognize yourself in it.""Absolutely great read. Loved the book from page one on and couldn't put it down. Many twists and turns will keep you on your toes every time you turn a page and best of all.... It's hilariously funny.""This is a fantastic read. Equal parts pulp, comedy, lewd humour and visceral crime, "Burn" never fails to entertain and shock.""Author Slatter weaves together a unique crime story that exists beyond the genre's classic tropes.""Loved it and looking forward to more.Straightforward storytelling including colorful and convincing characters. And oh that dangerous Russian!The humor in this story was delivered at just theright times....very funny. I love Dan's predicaments...what a hoot!"